


Encounter With Captain Jack

by thespian_trash



Series: Doctor Who Fics [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: BBC, Gen, Oneshot, Torchwood - Freeform, doctor who - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 11:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13165617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thespian_trash/pseuds/thespian_trash
Summary: After years of living a far-too-ordinary life, I've finally found My Doctor and the adventure I've always dreamed of. Together, the two of us travel all of time and space, doing whatever it is we want. Unfortunately, the universe isn't always as big as one would hope, and I run into an old lover or two...





	Encounter With Captain Jack

I awoke from my room within the TARDIS to what had once been described as the most beautiful sound in the universe. I thought so, every time I heard it. I popped my head around the corner and came waltzing into the TARDIS's welcoming foyer, where My Doctor stood, with a spring in his step and his hands gracefully moving over the control panel like a skilled pianist.

"Where? When?" I asked, falling into the routine we had established whenever we landed somewhere new.

"Cardiff. 2009." My Doctor replied without skipping a beat. His eyes were trained on the monitor I had labeled "starboard", and I leaned over his shoulder to see a man in a greatcoat making his way seemingly towards the TARDIS, but from the outside, he, like everybody else, wouldn't be able to fully understand the beauty of the vessel I had begun to call home.

I was a little disappointed we were back on Earth. My favorite places to go with My Doctor were halfway across the universe and usually millions of years from quite-ordinary-sounding 2009. I sighed, and then I thought of something that made me laugh.

"Oh my God. Doctor, I'm nine years old right now back home!"

"Well, what do you say we pop on in and wave hello once we're done fuelling up here?" he joked with me.

"Oh,  _that's_  why we're in Cardiff. I was wondering why you'd suddenly taken a liking for the ordinary." I observed, even though we both knew he'd always appreciated the ordinary kind of lives he could never have.

"Actually," My Doctor lowered his eyes, and in that instant I knew there was something he hadn't told me yet. "I got a message on the psychic paper. Just the date, location, and these initials:  _CJH_." He let me see the message, and I admired the scrawling letters which spoke of an experienced hand.

My eyes leapt from the paper and up to the doors that were my portal to worlds unknown when I heard them creak open. The man we had watched on the starboard monitor strutted in, draped in a gorgeous World War II greatcoat, which I recognized all too easily.

Resisting the urge to run back into the corridors of the TARDIS and hide, I not-so-tactfully ducked behind My Doctor as the man who I now knew to be Jack walked towards My Doctor with his arms open, waiting for an embrace.

My Doctor offered a nostalgic smile and returned Jack's welcome. Once the two had exchanged brief "Hello"s and "How've you been"s and "Fine"s, Jack's gaze shifted towards me, and less subtly, down my figure.

"Captain Jack Harkness. And you‒"

"Oh don't start!" My Doctor protested when Jack tried his classic introduction on me.

"Actually, we've met before, Doctor. We kind of...um..." I stammered off as my face turned tomato-red and I recalled the first time I ever met Jack.

* * *

It was a melancholy night, and the rain drenching the sidewalks kept me inside the bar while I waited for the weather to lighten up. I usually wasn't one for drinking. I usually wasn't one for sitting alone in a loud public place, either, but sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. It was barely eleven o'clock, and I'd already gotten more offers than I would have prefered to dance or find a quiet corner.

I had spent a good ten minutes staring fear into the soul of my less-than-satisfactory drink when yet another man took the seat to my left. A bit irritated and still debating whether or not it would be better to spare the money for a cab or walk home in the rain, I snapped at the man before he had a chance to speak.

"Listen, let me just save you the trouble now. The answer is no. Whatever you were about to ask me, the answer is no." As I spoke, my eyes raised to take in the sight before me. The stranger had a tanned, masculine face which flaunted a flirtatious smile and playful eyes which, at the moment, were making their way towards my bustline. My own eyes scanned over his impressive stature, the muscles ready to burst out of his baby-blue collared shirt, and the navy, almost black greatcoat which decorated his torso.

"Nice to meet you, No. The name's Captain Jack Harkness." The man extended one of his huge hands to me, initiating a handshake, and used my frustrated introduction against me to imply that his first question was only going to ask for my name.

Taking his handshake (and noting the firmness and respect with which he grasped my fingers) but refusing to answer his lingering question, I turned my eyes back toward my drink.

"Not happening." I muttered under my breath, but definitely loud enough for my fleeting admirer to hear.

"Woah, woah. I haven't even said anything remotely suggestive yet!" the man complained with a gleam in his eye.

"Key word. Yet." I shot back.

The man, Jack, as he called himself, didn't reply. He resigned himself to sitting back on the barstool and waiting to grab the bartender's attention for a drink. Once he had his poison of choice, the two of us sat staring at the wall, barely acknowledging each other's presence, until I awkwardly decided to break the silence which the rest of the bar was unwilling to participate in.

"So...Jack," I ventured, his eyes lighting up when he saw that I was willing to try smalltalk. "What exactly are you doing here?"

"Oh you know," he casually suggested, a wink in every syllable. "Just visiting an old friend."

"No, I mean in this bar. What are you doing  _here_?"

"Like I said. But enough about me. It looks like you've had a rough day. Can I buy you something?" I decided to ignore his cryptic answer and instead focused on his surprisingly accurate assessment of my day.

"No, I'm good," I motioned to my half-empty glass. "How...how did you know I had a rough day?"

"Number one," Jack opened up, "a girl like you doesn't come to a joint like this unless she has nowhere else to go. Number two, a girl like you doesn't shoot down a guy like me unless she's  _really_  not in the mood. And number three, you've got a look in your eyes that says 'Piss off, world, I've had enough for one day'".

"Bloody good assessment," I muttered, frustrated at my own inability to conceal even a sliver of my current situation.

Caught off guard, I felt worn finger-tips on my tiny wrist, straining for my attention, and Jack's face lowered close to mine. His alcohol-stained breath mingled with the air I breathed, and the intimacy of the moment shocked me. Our eyes locked, and I waited for him to say whatever it was he intended to say.

"That's okay, you know. All of it. It's okay." I don't know if he knew the power those words held to me, but it didn't matter. He had said them, and he couldn't stop the well of emotion that seemed to bubble up when the words I had told myself as a kid over and over again triggered a feeling of vulnerability. Years of shutting down emotion in public fell into habit though, and my eyes remained as dry as the desert I grew up in.

"Yeah, I know," I whispered, my glossy lips inches from Jack's firm ones.

"That's the thing. I don't think you do. Yet." Jack added, using that word again. "But you will. You'll find what you're waiting for, and then you'll know. Everything is going to be okay. Everything in this big, bad universe is going to be okay." Jack spoke straight to my heart, leaving me raw and listening for more. But nothing came. Nothing, save a sweet, tempting press of his lips to mine. He started to pull back, but in my head, when he had said the words I so needed to hear on a night like that, all thoughts of rejecting him ceased to exist. In a mostly drunken, uncharacteristic move, I slid both of my hands to the nape of his neck, shoved him toward me, and suctioned our mouths in a kiss. One of his hands rested on my thigh; the other on my upper back, between my shoulder blades. We worked at the kiss, neither of us wanting to stop, and I smiled as our mouths worked together, because he was  _very_ good at this.

At just the right time, Jack pulled his lips away from me and whispered, "I don't even know your name" in a manner that was more seductive than innocent.

"Maybe I'll whisper it in your ear," I flirted back, offered him my name, and sealed it inside his ear with a kiss.

By unanimous decision, the two of us decided to go back to my place for what he coded "dessert". As I picked up my purse from the scuffed floor, Jack took care of the bill and we stood to leave.

"I don't usually do this, you know." I attempted to salvage what little virtue I had left.

"What?" Jack questioned. "Let a man buy your drink?"

"That. Or go home with a strange man."

"Oh," Jack laughed out loud. I loved the sound of his laugh. I wanted to hear more of it, someday.

The rain had stopped by now, and the two of us made our way through the dark and the cold, splashing through puddles and glancing at each other every once in awhile, just to make sure we were still there. Jack and I stopped outside the entrance to my flat, and as I fished my keys out of my purse, I whispered "I love your coat", and he grinned as the two of us shuffled inside.

* * *

By now, my face was burning hot as I remembered the activities of that night so long ago, but I didn't need to say anything more for Captain Jack to understand what I was trying to communicate.

"Oh. Hey. Uh...no offense, but when did we‒" Jack got cut off again.

"Alright that's enough!" My Doctor played the role of awkward parent in this situation, but I whispered to Jack "2021", taking no offense in his confusion, only because I knew full well that time-travel had the tendency to mess relationships up.

"Ah," Jack whispered back. "Not yet," he explained with a wink. "Looking forward to it, though." If it was possible, even more blush rose to my cheeks, worsened by the disapproving stares coming my way from My Doctor. I would never live that one down.

Jack suddenly changed the subject, and I was eternally grateful for his graciousness in doing so. "Doctor," he started. "You've missed a lot. Can I...um...talk to you?" It sounded like Jack was asking for some private counsel.

With a comforting smile towards My Doctor and Jack, I offered to head out and walk around for a bit. As I closed the TARDIS doors behind me, I drew in a deep breath of sea-side air, feeling a little bit homesick now that we were back on Earth. My family knew exactly what I was doing. I didn't see any point in hiding it from them, even if they hated the life I had chosen. That was okay. I could live with that, but I couldn't live with myself if I had chosen a long, ordinary life instead of this more-than-likely short, but well-lived one.

Outside the TARDIS, the air was sticky with salt, and the clouds overhead threatened to drown the city in rain as I found a bench to sit down on that overlooked the bay. I'd never been to Cardiff before, even though I'd heard so much about it. This was where the great rift in time and space required Torchwood III's presence, where My Doctor often refuelled his TARDIS off of rift energy, and also where Eddie's Diner happened to be, which was restaurant #2 on my bucket list, after the restaurant on Darillium that overlooked the singing towers, for obvious reasons. As I mused over the history of Cardiff, a realization suddenly hit me. This was Cardiff. 2009. That meant the whole situation with the 456 had probably just blown over. A flood of panicked, fearful memories washed over my brain, as I remembered the worldwide distress caused by the alien demand for "Children of Earth". I was just nine years old, and my brother was only seven, so our poor parents had gone through hell and back trying to keep us safe.

My thoughts turned to Jack. Of course he was caught up in the middle of all this. At the time, he was head of Torchwood. I couldn't believe how put-together he appeared moments ago, flirting his way through life, when surely he was dying inside. I made up my mind to give him a friendly hug when he was done talking with My Doctor.

I must have spent an hour sitting on that cold, damp bench, staring out at the waves, which I could never get tired of, until I heard the quiet  _swish, swoosh_  of Jack's coat behind me. I stood up, turned around, and offered Jack a hug. "I'm so sorry," I whispered in his ear, and at his silence, I knew he was hurting.  _Never trust a hug. It's just a way to hide your face._  Words I had learned to see the truth in consumed my thoughts as my chin rested delicately on Jack's muscular shoulder. Jack finally had to be the one to let go, because I would have stayed there on my tiptoes indefinitely.

"You can come with us," I suggested to Jack, hoping he would say yes so I could hear more of his laughter from years ago as we travelled the universe.

"I think I'd better not," Jack replied kindly. "I've got some...stuff I'd better work out. Wouldn't want to disrupt the system you've got going with the Doctor, anyways. Thanks though."

I smiled sadly, accepting his decision to stay behind. "Well then," I moved on. "See you in 2021, sexy. Don't be late." I slipped a scrap of paper which I had scribbled on earlier into his coat pocket, which had the date, time, and bar name of the very first time I met him written across it. In what I hoped wouldn't be my last kiss with Jack, I grabbed the thick collars of his greatcoat and reached up for a peck on the lips. Jack didn't kiss back. If anything, he kind of flinched away, and I tried not to feel jealous, because I was obviously not the lover he had on his mind at the moment.

We shook hands and walked away, me toward the TARDIS and Jack towards the heart of Cardiff. I took a quick glance back to see Jack walking with his head down and his hands in his pockets, too distracted by grief to notice the city around him. I sent a quick prayer up to heaven for Jack and slipped into the TARDIS where My Doctor was waiting for me.

"Where to now?" I asked, ready to continue my exploration of the big, bad universe.


End file.
